Was it worth it?

onMonday, 12 September 2011

A follow-up to the story of Astana, the UCI’s and Andrey Kireyev. The Vuelta a España is over and Andrey Kasheckin finished the Vuelta in 89th place.

As background the Kazakh rider transferred from Lampre to Astana in August, a mix of push and pull. He wanted to ride the Vuelta and wasn’t entirely happy with the Lombard team; Astana wanted more Kazakh riders.

Regular readers will know this prompted a small farce whereby Astana was allowed to recruit Kasheckin in breach of UCI rules on team size… yet oddly the UCI approved the move. Once the breech of rules was pointed out, first by L’Equipe, you could hear the sound of back-pedalling and faced with a surplus rider, suddenly Roman Kireyev developed a back injury, rendering him permanently unable to race again. Soon after finishing the gruelling Tour de l’Ain in a 40th place.

You can read more on this here and here but from afar, things looked sloppy. The UCI approved a transfer in breach of its own rules and once outsiders pointed this out, an apparently healthy rider develops back injuries so severe he doesn’t just stop for the season and runs out his contract but leaves the team with immediate effect.

Kachechkin’s performance as a protected rider must leave a nasty taste. He came in only 5′ 13″ ahead of Australia’s Stuey O’Grady who spent most of the race dragging baggy-arsed Leopard-Trekkers along in his wake as well as other domestic duties.

I don’t know what Kachechkin’s programme included another GT this year but I think it might be with eye for next year that he was raced. The boost that apparently doing a GT provides to your base will provide a strong platform for better performances (provided he keeps training right? ). My two cents anyway.